Mistakes
by CSIVixen
Summary: There's nothing wrong with making a mistake as long as you don't follow it with encores.' Anonymous. Snickers, with a healthy dose of angst!Griss.
1. Grissom

**Title: **Mistakes

**Summary: **"There's nothing wrong with making a mistake- as long as you don't follow it with encores." -Anonymous. Snickers, with a healthy dose of angst!Griss.

**Rating: **T

**Warnings: **Language, mention of 'situations'

**Author's Note: **Yeah, as usual, Snicker centric ) Cause I love Snickers. Muah. This inspired a question I asked on the Snicker thread at TalkCSI: What would Grissom's reaction to Sara and Nick moving in together be? Which in turn was prompted by: how would Sara and Nick move in together? So here's my spin on things. I'm taking liberties with how much Griss knew Sara before she came to Vegas, as I've never been too clear on that. First chapter is Grissom's POV, second is Nick's.

**Mistakes : Grissom POV**

"There's nothing wrong with making a mistake- as long as you don't follow it with encores."

That quote has been in my mind since I started making one certain mistake that has been plagued with encores since it was first made. That fateful day, six years ago, when Sara Sidle came to Vegas.

We- Sara and I- started out alright, I suppose. I'd known her for a few years, since she was in Harvard and I'd given a lecture there. Then, she'd struck me as a brilliant young woman who'd make a wonderful CSI, but I felt strange trying to get to know her because I was a teacher, and she a student. A few years after that, we met again at a forensics conference, and I was surprised to see how she'd grown- not in stature, but in personality. There was still the passion for what she did, and it was backed by a new maturity. I had no qualms about making friends with her then; she was no longer a student. We kept in contact after that conference, letters making their way back and forth maybe twice a month.

Then came the whole incident with Holly Gribbs. I felt horrible having to investigate Warrick; but I knew there was nobody, except those on our team, who I would trust to make the investigation. And, of course, our team knew Warrick, so I called in outside help.

One Ms. Sara Sidle.

And she came. I was vaguely surprised; lately, in her letters, she'd been raving about her job in San Francisco. But, she dropped that and came to Vegas, because I asked her to. She fit right in with the team, even with Catherine, to a degree. She worked well with Nick, tolerated Catherine, and even worked with Warrick, who was her reason for being here anyway. And after a while, she and Warrick even started being friends.

There was always a side to her manner that was flirtatious. I could tell, from hearing her talk, that she looked at me as more than a friend. More than a supervisor, superior, or mentor. And what scared me was that I thought of her as more than just a student. I never made a move on her, though. That was my first mistake.

Over the years our relationship changed. There was no longer the easy banter we'd shared through her first year. I knew she was still hoping for a chance with me, even though I turned down her offers for dinner. More mistakes. Sometimes, we didn't even talk, except the bare minimum of words necessary for the case. One time she almost left; Catherine made me send her a plant, and she stayed, probably saw it as hope. If Catherine hadn't been around egging me on, I probably wouldn't have done it, coward that I am when it comes to Sara.

This last year has maybe been the worst. The shift split started it. Sara had always been close with Nick; had gotten to be close with Warrick and, despite Sara not being able to find out who killed Eddie Willows, she and Cath were civil to each other. But suddenly, Sara rarely saw two of her friends. She did alright; saw Greg through his CSI training. Come to think of it, one of the rare times I saw her smile was when Greg passed his final proficiency. Cath, Nick and Warrick had come to congratulate him, of course. Ecklie, being Ecklie, told them to break it up. So what did they do? Open a bottle of champagne in the break room. I can't quite blame them. Being split up was hard on everyone.

And then that fateful case with the mail-order brides. I remember that all too clearly: I'd helped Cath open up the tar. And broke it. So I let her have Sara to help with the case.

Another mistake.

How could I have known? It hurt her, working that case. Reminded her of her past. Which, coincidentally, she'd never told me about, never in any of those letters that I still have somewhere, did she mention her childhood. If she had, maybe I could've sent Greg to work that case. The woman, murdered by her husband. Sara, blowing up first at Catherine, then at Ecklie, both of which thought I should fire her.

But I didn't. I might never have made a move on her, but she was always my weakness. Normally I would hide it. Pretty well, too. But that night, when I went to talk to her, she just looked so...lost. She opened the door, bottle in hand, not even trying to hide the fact that she'd been drinking and crying. And then she just let it all out, told me everything. How her mother killed her father. I didn't tell anyone about it. I told Cath and Ecklie that I wouldn't be firing her. I had my reasons. They probably figured it was just more favouratism. Was it? Maybe. But, as I once told Sara about Warrick, I saw the whole puzzle, and they were only seeing a piece.

Throughout Nick's abduction, too, you could see that something had changed. She was so worried about him; she was falling apart. She put in a hundred and ten percent to finding him, and in the end, she was the one who found him. Chances are we would've got to him. There were two places where he could've been, there was a fifty-fifty chance, but Sara ran and got the Kelly Gordon file. Figured that Nick would be there, at the nursery where Kelly had worked. Ran back into the room, and you could hear relief and hysteria mixing in her voice as she said "Guys, Nick is _here_!".

After that, I didn't see much of her, even at work. She took some time off with no real reason given. I should've started being suspicious then, but of course, I figured that the whole Nick thing had done something to her and she just wanted some time off.

I was right. But not in the way I thought. The final mistake.

About six months after we had rescued Nick, she moved. Not away from Vegas; that would've got a reaction from me. She just walked into my office, dropped her change of address form on the desk, and went back out. No words spoken. I didn't pay much attention to it then, just filed it the way I would any other change of address form. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew something had changed. Catherine and Warrick seemed to be hiding something. They'd exchange glances, right in front of me, and I knew somehing was up. But it never occured to me.

Then I had to send out that letter to them all at home. And what do I find as I'm writing out addresses on the envelopes? I'd written Nick's first. When I reached Sara's, the address seemed familiar- too familiar. I looked up and sure enough, it was the same as Nick's. I knew then that I'd made one mistake too many, pushed Sara away one too many times. She'd finally moved on.


	2. Nick

**Title: **Mistakes

**Summary: **"There's nothing wrong with making a mistake- as long as you don't follow it with encores." -Anonymous. Snickers, with a healthy dose of angst!Griss.

**Rating: **T

**Warnings: **Language, mention of 'situations'

**Author's Note: ** And the second chapter. Nick POV. Might be a third in Sara POV, feedback always welcome!

**Mistakes**

The first thing that clearly came into my mind was Sara's face. Sara Sidle, one of my best friends. The last twenty four hours had been a blur of darkness, screams, fear, and pain, and it was a relief to see something familiar. My eyes opened completely and I knew I hadn't been dreaming: Sara was sitting next to me, holding my hand in hers. She was asleep; I could only imagine how long she'd been awake. Despite still being in pain, I smiled a little, seeing her like that. She looked peaceful.

A little while later, I got the urge to sneeze. I knew Sara was a light sleeper, but I couldn't stop it. She started awake, eyes wide, but a grin spread across her face when she saw I was awake.

"Nick!" She squeezed my hand, not hard enough to hurt, but it conveyed that she was restraining herself from throwing her arms around me. "I'm so glad you're awake, we've been doing shifts since we found you..." Since they found me? Wasn't that what just happened?

"Good to be awake, Sara... how long have I been out? I feel like everything just happened..." She hesitated for a second before answering.

"You've been asleep for about a day. Cath and Warrick stayed with you first- they rode here with you. Then Griss stayed for a few hours, but he had to leave, things were piling up. And Greg and I got here maybe six hours ago, Greg had to head home though, muttered something about feeding a cat." I chuckled.

"Didn't know he had a cat. Recent?" It hurt a little to talk, but it felt amazing being alive, in the bright light of the hospital, with Sara in the same room.

"Yeah. We...I guess we haven't had much of a chance to talk, huh?" I shook my head and we sat in silence for a moment. "I missed you so much, Nicky." She added quietly.

"I missed you too, Sara." And then I couldn't stop myself reaching out to her, pulling her down next to me in a hug. Human contact was one thing I needed, craved even. And I knew something had changed between me and Sara.

--------

Something did change. Sara Sidle, Ms. Work-a-holic herself, took time off. To stay with me. I told her she didn't need to, but she insisted, and really, I was glad. I think she knew. I guess that's why they say friends make the best lovers- not that we were at that stage at that point- but it just felt so natural to slip into the routine of seeing her every day, meeting her with a kiss and a hug and a 'how are you?'. There was never any awkwardness, either, no dead, uncomfortable silence. We could talk about anything and everything, but there was something in the silence too that was comforting, just the fact that we could both sit there, holding each other in silence, and not have to talk to know that we were completely in love.

After a while, she was practically moved in. She was back at work at this point and one day, Warrick called me to mention that Sara and Cath had been talking the night before, and Sara had mentioned 'going over to Nick's' to get a change of clothes, and what exactly was happening that Sara had to come to my house to get a change of clothes? I just grinned, even though Warrick couldn't see it, and said that we'd tell him eventually. And then when Sara came home, I told her about it and said that she might as well completely move in. We both had a long laugh about that.

By the end of that day, Cath and Warrick both knew that there was this..thing, with me and Sara. We'd never really talked it over. But by the end of the week, she'd put in her change of address form to Grissom. She'd been nervous about that, not quite sure how he'd take it, knowing first hand that he didn't like relationships at work. But he never mentioned a thing; Warrick and Catherine said he'd acted the same as usual.

The next week, Warrick, Cath and Greg all helped us move the last of Sara's stuff to my house. Greg was a bit put out, considering he'd always liked Sara, but on the other hand he wasn't too dissapointed. Seriously, he wouldn't shut up about this girl he'd met somewhere.

When everyone had left, Sara and I just had supper and watched a movie- organising would come tomorrow, since she'd taken a bit more time off work. We joked around that I was having a bad influence on her, but you could tell she was just kidding. The movie was pretty boring, but I guess compared to the gorgeous woman next to me, anything would be boring. One thing led to another; that night was a blur, too, but the opposite of the night that had brought us together: this blur was full of kisses, of skin on skin, moans and panting and bliss and, finally, the deep sleep that was perfectly contented happiness.

And the next morning, waking up next to her, tangled up with her, kissing her awake, was its own kind of bliss. Opening your eyes to the person you love is the deepest form of happiness there is.


End file.
